Hawaii

archipelago, Pacific Ocean

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Alternative Title:
Sandwich Islands

Computer-generated image of the summit area of Lō‘ihi, a submarine volcano southeast of the island of Hawaii. Lō‘ihi shares the same “hot spot” on Earth’s crust that has formed Mauna Loa and Kilauea volcanoes on Hawaii.

Image courtesy of John R. Smith, Hawai’i Undersea Research Lab at SOEST, University of Hawai’i/ Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

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volcanic activity

Hawaiian volcanoes are the best examples of hot-spot volcanoes. The five volcanoes that form the island of
Hawaii at the southeast end of the
Hawaiian chain are all less than one million years old. Two of these, Kilauea and Mauna Loa, are two of the most active volcanoes in the world. Northwestward along the
Hawaiian chain each island is progressively older. The extinct volcano or volcanoes...

...Lō‘ihi, a seamount whose summit caldera is 1 km (0.6 mile) below sea level and 30 km (19 miles) southeast of the island of
Hawaii. Although eruptions of this youngest volcano of the
Hawaiian chain have not been directly observed, seismographs detected swarms of earthquakes at shallow depths beneath the summit of Lō‘ihi in 1971–72, 1975, and 1996. Observers in a...